Question about fermentation temps quoted here

When you guys say "I ferment at 62 (pick your temp)" etc.. are you referring to ambient temps?
I usually keep my ambient at 63-65 but not sure what that translates to wort temp.
So when a Wyeast product sheet says ferment at 65 say.. I always assumed they were referring to ambient, not wort temperature.. Am I right?

Generally, and particularly with yeast company literature, the listed temps are the beer temps, not ambient. The temperature of the ferment will increase as fermentation gets closer to it's peak, then go back down to ambient as fermentation slows down. It could vary from a couple degrees F to 6 to 10 °F higher than ambient.

There are various methods to monitor fermentation temps... thermometer stickers, probes, etc. I chose the least invasive and least expensive route by taking my probe thermometer and fastening it to the outside of the Better Bottle, insulating it with bubble wrap/tape. This gets a pretty accurate measurement of what's going on inside the fermenter.

They are referring to wort temp.. which = ambient temp after a few hours. My basement is around 64 in winter 68 in summer making it ale paradise

OP good question, I always assumed it was the actual wort temp, but I never really thought about it.

I swamp cooler/water bath and make sure that the water temp is about 3 degrees cooler than the lowest fermentation temp before placing my fermenters in the cooler, the water line just about reaches the 5 gallon mark on my fermenters, so I like to think that the water is helping to keep the overall temps in the fermenter close to where they need to be during the most active part of fermentation.

Okay then I am going to lower ambient to the low end of the temp range for a yeast.

Right now I'm fermenting a brown ale with Wyeast 1007 and it says 55-68 so I am going to set my ambient temp at 55.